We already knew that Flower, thatgamecompany’s upcoming Playstation Network game, was hitting America shores for $9.99.
Now European prices have also been disclosed. We’re looking at €7.99 in Europe and £6.29 in the UK. Using the currency conversion skills locked inside your brain (also known as ‘Google’) it’s pleasing to find that, in comparison, that’s about $8.99, so us Euros are getting it on the cheap!
It’ll help tackle the Credit Crunch, you know.
I was expecting innovative, completely crazy yet cool ideas from ‘The Big Boys’ at the Global Game Jam, but these… these threw me a little.
Petri Purho of Crayon Physics fame went for the ‘That’s pretty unique’ with a large dollop of ‘What the hell!!’ for his effort, called ’4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness’. The object of the ‘game’ is to keep the program up for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, allowing the white to engulf all the black. The catch is, if anyone else in the world loads up the game, your game will end. I know… what the hell, right?
“It’s an exploration to what actually defines a game. You can win or fail in the game, but there is no user input or interactivity of any kind. I was tempted to leave the graphics out completely, but I figured that the white progress bar is abstract enough.”
Fair enough. Onto the second rather odd submission from none other than Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel.
AVGM, or ‘Abusive Video Game Manipulation’, asks you to repeatedly click a light switch over and over again to make objects magically appear, so you can then arrange them in a lovely order. Apparently you need to flip the switch 10005 times to win.
See, the problem is that people who understand (and I say that in very loose terms – to understand the man is to be lying to oneself) Mr. McMillen will know that this whole thing is a bit of a micky-take and anyone who actually clicks the damn thing that many times has just a little too much time on their hands (says the guy who’s posting on an indie games site for no personal gain).
This cannot be more obvious in the little comments he makes:
“UPDATE: The game now has 10 different endings that each make a piece of a puzzle. put the puzzle together and e-mail me with the info for a prize!”
Indeed. Two very strange games from three very indescribable minds.
Independently Speaking has moved! Well… kinda.
While Independently-Speaking.com used to redirect wuh-wuh-wuh surfers to the WordPress blog of the same name, Independently-Speaking.com is now the main site itself, with all site material available straight from there.
Have no fear! All links aimed at the WordPress blog will still get to their destinations un-harmed, while the RSS feed still works perfectly fine too! (even though I predicted that it wouldn’t)
So hail to the new, slicker site setup! But don’t you go worrying your little tooties there, mister – it’s still the exact same site, just with a cooler address.
Did I seriously just say ‘tooties’…
You may have noticed that, while the actual address for this site is independentlyspeaking.wordpress.com, the link www.independently-speaking.com will redirect you here also.
Sometime tomorrow, however, there’s going to be a bit of a change. A swap, if you will. www.independently-speaking.com will become the main site and independentlyspeaking.wordpress.com will begin redirecting there. I decided that Independently Speaking needs a proper site address and so, from tomorrow, it will!
Of course, moving the whole site is going to cause problems – RSS feed will probably stop working, previous links from other sites will become dead… but I’d rather get the move done sooner rather than later.
So don’t forget to add the new site address to your favourites/sign up to the new RSS feed!
You may also note that this is my 100th post since IS began. Hurrah!
Entropy
The Entropy Team
Boston, MA, USA
Brilliant painting excellence. Set land into a rotating planet and float clouds in the sky – then after 1 rotation, the view zooms out so you can admire your handiwork. You’ll spend the first minute in awe of the brilliance, then the last 2 minutes etching words, faces and god knows what into the sea.
Lost Colors
Lighthouse
Ankara, Turkey
Choatic 2-player madness. Playing as two balls, your mission is to escort the third red ball to his destination – however you’re being pelted with good and bad spheres. Catch the good, dodge the bad, make it to the end. Oh and don’t touch each other either – it’s baaad, mmkay?
Brown Cloud
The Kranzky Bros.
Perth, Australia
Another extremely odd one. Playing as the ‘King of Winds’, the objective is to fly around, suck in the brown clouds, spit them out as one big cloud… and repeat. Graphically it’s got some very nice effects going on – it’s just the brains of the Kranzky Bros then you have to wonder about…
And that ends the ‘Best Of’ series for Global Game Jam 2009! We’ve got a fantastically mixed bag, with some ingenious, some beautiful, some sinister and some downright ridiculous.
See you again next year, eh?
I found this just too endearing not to post. John of Armor Games has posted the threequel to the Elephant Series which includes Elephant Rave and, of course, the awesome Achievement Unlocked.
Run Elephant Run is the story of our dear little elephant and his escape from fame, on a mission back to his sweetheart in Africa. As completely silly as it is, it’s extremely well made and is a lot of fun – plus the technobeat which runs throughout just fits the game perfectly.
It’s Armor Games’ unofficial Global Game Jam game, with John finishing it in under 48 hours:
“I started on Thursday morning and wrapped up Friday night before leaving on a small mini-vacation to the coast.”
Custody
Akrasia
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Possibly the most meaningfully-developed idea of the bunch. Based around the view of a 12 year old whose parents have split and now run separate lives, the child is stuck in between both parents’ lives and every movement of the child shapes the territories of the parents. Wow.
The Ex-Chipendales Bob & Bob in: Together in the Dark, Raiders of Lua Temple
TeamBob
Paris, France
I’m usually against really long, tedious, pointless names, but this one I can stand, mainly because the game provides lots of 2-player fun. Enter the temple, find treasure and work together to get it out of there in one piece. Good, solid co-op fun.
Move Mouse to Fulfill Destiny
Fast Farmer
Boston, MA, USA
I really like this one a lot. As the seasons pass, you must plant the crops, let them grow, then bring them in as food for your friends to eat, while all the while building up your infrastructure. It’s the little things about this which are also so great – quoted from their GGJ page: “In your youth, time seems to pass more slowly and you may not know exactly what you’re doing, but as you age, you’ll find your footing and perhaps a partner to share the journey. What will remain when you’re gone?”. Remarkable.
You’re nearly there! Head on over to the final part of this epic saga.
